journal

My summer is much longer this year. Almost two weeks, in fact, two weeks almost exactly of no schoolwork or required reading or lost mechanical pencils. No sorting through synonyms in my head at 11 pm for the sake of a paragraph. For the sake of a confession, maybe, or a conversation. But not for something graded by letters in red ink.

My age group is occupied all at the same time all in the same place so I feel like I'm skipping or lying or cheating to get out. But my excuse is just the opposite. My absence is expected, and I can't say how much I like it.

There is one person whom I wish to say I'm sorry, so here I say it- im so trribly sorry. This person has made a big impact on my life and its all for good and bad. Thank you, Nick.

Momma held her hands up to the perfect blue sky and puffy white clouds, and let the sunshine slip through her fingers.

"See that, Seika?" Momma said to me softly. "That's sun dust."

"...Sun dust?" I asked. "Where does sun dust come from?"

"It comes from balance. From life and sunshine being one, and together, at harmony with each other - creating a time of peace."

Her words brought a smile to my face.

Momma's replies were always so pretty and musical, sounding like something you'd read from a fancy book. A perfect-fancy-book.

I've learned to
scream silently,
because if my mother
knew that
I cried myself
to sleep every night,
she would surely
think something
was wrong...

But...

Something IS wrong.
Everything is wrong.

I've spent
my whole life
battling one illness
after another,
and all I have
to show for it
are diseases that
they don't know
how to treat,
bunches of
pills I have
to choke down,
and no good excuse
for why I
couldn't do
my homework.
Because I'm
so fucking tired
all the time.
Teachers don't
understand.
Teachers say
go to bed
earlier then.
Schedule your

While I float upon this ocean/I can feel you like a notion that I hope will never leave.

I do not write anymore. Saying that gives me a funny constriction from the cracks in my lips down through my chest, muscles tight against the pillow of apathy being pressed over my face. But it's true. I don't write anymore. Not like I used to. Yes maybe I still put words down on paper, but it's turned to craft rather than art, chronicle rather than creation. The difference is so subtle I hadn't grasped it until I turned up on the wrong side.

I sat in chemistry class,
tracing the lines
on my binder,
until the ink
from my pen
filled the grooves,
like veins
filled with
inky black blood.

I trudged down the hallway
to my locker,
fiddled with
the combination
until it popped open,
revealing text books
and piles of papers.

I walked towards
my next class,
and as I
clutched my books
tightly to my breasts,
I could almost pretend
they didn't exist.

This room doesn’t feel quite right.

Maybe it’s the absence of posters on the wall. Maybe it’s the desk’s new position in the center of the room, or the side of the room I’m sitting on, or the way the desks are weirdly arranged. But maybe it’s not that. That wasn’t so uncommon an occurrence last year.

Maybe it’s the lack of people; it’s not quite my history class yet because my history class is still last year’s history class & this isn’t quite the same.

(just sort of writing what comes to me)

Have you ever been in silence and listened to the world live on, how if you stop, time continues to tick away?

The scent of cherry-kissed daylight fills my morning, as I wake. The sunlight streams through the open window, me seeing the pulled back polka-dotted curtains, and sitting up tiredly.

I stretch my arms, while emitting that classic yawn of mine.

Scratch-scratch.

Like I'd ever admit it, but, I have the daily ritual of scratching the annoying scab on the back of my elbow - which I gotten from a strange biking incident - until it bleeds, every morning. And that's what'd make me stand up, and shuffle to the bathroom like a weary sloth-monkey.

Aaaarrrggghhh.

In the chipped paint & overgrown violets
of half-abandoned houses;
I'm dancing at the fringes,
trailing my fingers along
peeled
railings
and neglected vines.

Because there's something magnificent
about old houses:
something in the scent of ancient wallpaper,
elegance in the water-stained
floorboards and sun-splintered shingles.
"Antique" is precious because
You cannot fool Time,
and History is embedded in the very heart
of civilization
(& its materialism.)

We hoard
because the story of something
is often just as
beautiful
as the
thing itself.

Libraries are where I belong. The shelves of books absorb the noise of the world that sometimes I can’t help but feel removed from. I spend most of my time in the fiction section, but I’m happy most anywhere. The potential knowledge of each book—let alone a shelf of them- -fills my mind with wonder. I cannot help but to become giddy. I do not read much non-fiction. Some of it is very interesting, but I prefer to be reassured by the imagination of others. Perhaps I chose fiction because I’d like to believe that imagination still exists; sometimes it seems unlikely.

__________________________________________________________
You make me feel so strange inside.
You make me feel like, I'm alive inside.
You make me laugh, you make me smile.
You make me care, you make me think.
Your making me care, care more then I thought.
I never thought, this would happen.
I thought I could control, who I fall for.
__________________________________________________________
You make me feel like a child inside..
With butterflies in my stomach..
Your making me wonder, what if..
Your sweet, your kind, you care..
Your the one, I've been told about..

Often, in life, there are little, tiny moments when things change. Sometimes you notice them, sometimes you don't. When you do, they are often accompanied by a rush of emotion, or an instantaneous alteration of perception or direction or belief.

With music, the change is more obvious, more dramatic; but sometimes just as emotional.

Three people had the exact, but different, reactions to the same moment, the same tiny little passage of time on Friday evening.

I remember I used to give you
poems to read.
You told me,
you can learn a lot about a person
through their writing.
I stopped letting you
read my poems,
for they were all about girls,
and I was scared that you would
uncover my secrets.

the apple pie,guts and glory,life after death,FOREVER DARKNESS,THE END FINALLY COMES.
CHAPTER4
I opened my eyes and found myself on top of a building. I looked around and saw that I was on the white house. How did i get here? I thought. Then I realized I was not only on the white house but I was floating over it. I was a goest!!!!!!!

My 8th grade year.
I know I should be less nervous. I mean, I know almost everyone, am comfortable with a third of them, and I tend to get good grades.

It's just that- every year is distinctly different in some way:
Kindergarten it was making and spending the year with a new friend.
5th grade it was the teambuilding field trips.
7th grade it was the drama and the fight with my best friend of 8 years.
But 8th grade...

A lot of the people in the other "group," the drama starters, are leaving.

I found this scribbled in a notebook...it's basically an overview of a typical bad day back in May/ June when I was just soo ready for school to be over. But I got a kick out of my grumpy side...enjoy :)

PERIOD 1: Band

Catch me here,
with brambles in my feet
and leaves in my hair;
I can feel my blood
rushing, rushing
against the earth,
the soil of my fathers' bones.
Their tears, their toil; it has shaped
this place, given it life, burden,
fruit.

Something tells me to cloak myself
in raw emotions
and leave my hair
wild and unbound.
I am the couching lioness
you always told me I was:
flashing eyes and a twitching tail,
untamed in this chaos.

Flashforward-rewind-taketwosteps
into the future, and watch
what we can unfold.

She had tried to block out all the hurt, but it always came back.
She cut her wrists to distract her from the life she was trapped in. She locked herself away in her room every chance she got, and she barely spoke.
She didn’t have any friends. They had all abandoned her long ago. She had no one to vent to except her journal.

Her journal. It was the only place she was truly familiar with. She knew it would never leave her.
It comforted her to be able to take all the anger from her mind and drain it onto a paper, until she felt nothing.

(We put a bug catcher on the front porch, hoping to catch flies. We caught a dragonfly. This sort of thing breaks my heart just a little. And it reminded me of you.)

Right now, you might somewhere be over the Atlantic Ocean, Delaware, Georgia, West Virginia. Sitting with your eyes shut in an uncomfortable blue leather seat, your headphones plugged into your iPod, not the in-flight entertainment system. Bob Marley or Bob Dylan playing, I would never have understood the difference without you.
Thank you.

I step off the front porch,
my bare feet feeling the soft,
warm grass
(and occasionally, an acorn).
Finding a nice patch of sun on the lawn,
I lay my towel down,
removing the sticks from around me,
to make it more comfortable.
I slowly lower myself onto the towel.
It is not a particularly small beach towel,
yet my legs and feet stick off the end,
into the ant-infested grass.
Using my hands to keep the sun from my eyes,
I smile to myself.
This is about the best I've felt all day.

This morning,
after realizing
that I caught the cold that my family has been suffering from,

I know I will probably see you today.
So I am wearing my "Carpe Diem" shirt and the blue shorts because I know make my ass look good. Not because I want you to want me. I'm done with that.
I want me to want me.
I am done with being insecure. I want my self confidence back. I want to go back to not feeling because that way there is no pain. And that is just the way I like it.
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. And it's the fish's own fault if when she falls off the bicycle if she does decide she wants one.

I stood in my bedroom this morning,
Stood in front of my mirror, and
Cried.
Cried about the truths that
Could never be hidden.
Disguised, maybe, but
Never completely hidden.

See, people look at me,
And they think, "girl".
Depending on how I'm dressed,
Sometimes it may take them
Longer to come to that
Conclusion.
But they always get there.
They may think that
I look sort of butch, but
The conclusion of "girl" is
Always there.
"Well yeah, she has boobs!'
What an inconvenience.

I look in the mirror, and
I too, see a girl.
Hips, waist, and breasts.
And I cry.

I look down at the spaces between my fingers knowing that yours were once locked into mine. Now they will never be locked again. We held hands everywhere.In the store, while going for a walk and more... Now there are spaces in my heart, empty spaces that will never be filled again. You were never embarrassed to say I love you or kiss me in front of your friends and family. I thought we never could be separated but thats just the way life works. Why did you have to let go but I guess it was for the best, for both of us.

We stopped at a rest stop.
Not nearly as nice as
The first one we stopped at.

No free coffee.
No, here you have to PAY for your coffee.
And the machine broke anyway.
Only gives out hot water now.
Too bad the man who tried to use it earlier didn't know that.
But at least now everyone else knows.
They put a sign on it.
Out Of Order.

I bought some m&m's for a dollar.
I know it's a waste of money.
But they looked so yummy.
And I did HAVE a dollar.
That's how vending machines work though.
They trick you into thinking you want
What they have to offer.

Vacuum clean floors
Just because it's something
To do.
Dead flies and
Dust bunnies
(Dust usagis?)
Gather in the corners.
Vacuum in the dark.
It won't make a difference
(Until I run into somthing)

Vacuuming is dangerous
Because it leads to thinking.
A lot of thinking
Tends to happen
While vacuuming.

Thinking about
College.
I've got three
College interviews scheduled for
Next week.
"Why do you want to go to this college?"
I don't.
"What can you bring to this college?"
Nothing.
"Why this college and not that one?"

The wierd flying thing flew from flower to flower.
It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen!
"Do you know what this is?" My father asked me.
I looked at it. It was a pale golden color, with wings flitting so fast they were hard to see, with some wierd antenae...
"Umm...Well, it looks like a hummingbird, but..."
I look at it some more, thinking.
"It's a Hummingbird-Moth," he tells me.
Huh?
This thing was a moth?!
"That is SO cool!" I exclaim.
We watch it for a while.
It finally flits away from us, to the other side of the pond.

So I'd like to introduce you to something that I call my mind. It's nonexistant sometimes, but other times it will take over my whole being and control me. I know this sounds like I'm bipolar, but I'm not. I'm just like you. You know those moments when you try to calm yourself and clear your head and think of nothing? Most people have trouble with that because as human beings, we are curious and about our surroundings and the world and the most importent question that we can't seem to figure out the answer to, WHY!? Why do we like music? Why is space expanding? Why do we live?

1: Did you know that I baked you a pie? =D

2: Oh, what flavor? ^^

1: Pie flavored!!!

2: Really? O.O

1: No, idiot. -_-